Unbreak My Heart (Heroes of Port Dale Book 4)

by Romeo Alexander

  “Fuck’s sake, Blaine,” Eric snapped at him.

  Blaine raised a brow. “Well?”

  Eric was not impressed, he wasn’t. There was no way in hell he was ever going to admit to being impressed by anything Blaine did. It was just that fancy military training at work, and that was all.

  Ignoring his twisting stomach, Eric nodded tersely. “We just had to interview him. Now we go back and do more paperwork.”

  “Oh, joy.”

  The ride back was as silent as the ride to the scene had been. The difference was that the silence felt far more uncomfortable than it had before. Eric couldn’t say for certain why, but he had the distinct feeling that something was brewing in Blaine’s head. There was no real give away on his face, though Eric thought maybe Blaine’s jaw was a little tighter than before, it was mostly just a feeling.

  Then again, that was pure Blaine. Where Eric would throw his problem in someone’s face and force them to deal with him, Blaine internalized it and evaluated it. Most of the time, that meant he would inevitably let the problem go, having argued with himself over it. Other times, it meant he was stewing, and that was never a good thing.

  Eric wasn’t going to ask, though. It wasn’t his problem.

  He raised his hand in a brief greeting to David at the front desk. As soon as David realized it was them, the man drew his book back out from under his desk. Eric couldn’t tell if he was amused or disturbed that the front cover had a shapely woman wound tightly around a built man, his chest gleaming from his open fireman’s jacket. The ax the woman held in one hand, with a decidedly lewd grip, was an interesting touch.

  The things you learned about people.

  As soon as they entered the office, Eric threw himself into his chair. “Just load up the program and put in what we learned. There should be an option to connect it to the other Howell files we have on record.”

  “I saw it earlier,” Blaine said tiredly.

  Eric turned to him. “Got a problem?”

  Blaine didn’t look at him as he clicked around. “Are you planning on butting in every time I click something?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Well, you put me to work on the interview, and then took over whenever you felt like it. I assume you’ll be doing the same for this.”

  “Last I fucking checked, I’m the one who’s supposed to be showing you the ropes.”

  “That doesn’t require pinning me to them because you’re pissed off at me.”

  “Oh, fuck you,” Eric grunted, spinning to face his computer.

  Blaine snorted softly. “Is this where you pretend to not know what I’m talking about?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eric insisted.

  “Right. Because you haven’t been a surly ass for the past week. Because you didn’t try to throw me at the interview because you wanted to mess with me. Because you didn’t constantly interrupt because you’re pissed off at me and don’t trust me.”

  Eric glowered at his screen, angrily typing in his login information. “Someone’s paranoid. You’re new, I’m doing my job.”

  “This isn’t about the job, and you know it,” Blaine said softly.

  “Yes, it is.”

  Eric pushed away from his desk again, fuck this, he was going to grab something to eat. He wasn’t going to sit around and listen to Blaine, of all people, explain to him in that infuriatingly calm voice, what Eric’s problem was.

  “You’re pissed at me,” Blaine repeated.

  “I don’t give a shit, Blaine. That’s not the fucking point,” Eric hissed as he stomped out of the office.

  Blaine was quick on his heels. “It is the point. You just don’t want it to be the point.”

  “Oh, don’t give me that shit,” Eric snarled, stomping toward the break room.

  “What, the truth? Well, that’s what it is,” Blaine shot back.

  “Like you would even know the truth. You haven’t known me for eight years, you don’t know a goddamn thing about me,” Eric told him as he hurried down the hallway.

  “Right, because people undergo huge dramatic changes in their whole personality. You’re not still the same guy in many ways, no, that can’t be possible.”

  The sarcasm pissed Eric off even more, and he whirled around. “Fuck you, Blaine, you don’t get to call me out, you don’t get to know me.”

  Blaine stared down at him, a sad expression crossing his face and then disappearing. Eric’s stomach turned at the brief display of emotion, and he shoved his own thoughts away. No, he was not going to feel bad for Blaine, he was not going to give him pity or sympathy.

  “I do know you. Even if you refuse to admit it,” Blaine said softly.

  “You knew me. And then you left. You left our town, you left the state, you left the fucking country. You left,” he stopped himself before finishing with ‘me.’

  “You,” Blaine finished instead.

  God, he hated how eight years later, the reminder still twisted in his gut. Eric was tired of being left, he was tired of being second to everything else in people’s lives. The only person who hadn’t left him was his brother, Sean was still by his side and would be for as long as he could. All Eric could rely on was his brother and himself. On the job, sure, he could probably rely on Blaine, but that was as far as it was getting.

  “But it was more than that,” Blaine continued.

  Eric’s lip curled in a flash of rage. He was not getting into this with Blaine, not again. The past was the past, and they were leaving it there.

  “If you can’t handle the job, then find another one. I’m not going to kiss your ouchies and make you feel better about yourself because I, the trained cop, am doing my job. And stop trying to make this out to be more than it is. You’re my partner because you have to be, and I’m going to do my job and train you. There is nothing else to this.”

  The words tumbled from his lips, shoving at Blaine as hard as he could without actually making contact. They were bitter, even Eric could hear that. They felt fragile, too, as though they might shatter the moment they touched something remotely firm. But it was the only truth he could offer Blaine, the only truth he could bring himself to speak.

  And so what if the words tasted like lies on his tongue.

  “Get that through your head, now,” Eric spat, whirling away.

  He left Blaine and his blank expression, standing in the hallway. Eric marched away, intent on finding something to fill his stomach other than coffee. And though harder than before, he ignored the twisting in his stomach.

  Blaine

  Tucking his phone between his face and his shoulder, Blaine wrestled with the keys to his apartment. It had been a very long week, and he was looking forward to having a bit of time to himself. After Eric’s outburst following Blaine’s attempt to get the man to face what was going on, the rest of the week had been absolute hell. Eric refused to talk to him unless it was absolutely necessary, and even then, he sounded like he’d rather be jumping into a volcano.

  “I lost you again, didn’t I?” Blake asked from his ear.

  Blaine winced, shoving at his key to unlock the deadbolt. “Yeah, sorry. It’s been a week...or two.”

  “Yeah, you mentioned that when you called me. Work itself, or just your partner?”

  Blaine tried hard not to make a guilty sounding noise as he opened the door. He’d yet to tell his brother just who his partner was. Blaine himself was still having a hard time believing that out of all the people he’d ended up paired with, it ended up being Eric. For all he’d known, Eric had been on the opposite side of the country doing who knew what. Instead, he ended up being a few hours’ drive from their hometown, working at the same precinct Blaine had applied to.

  The universe had a strange and twisted sense of humor.

  “Yeah, he’s uh,” Blaine began, tossing his keys into the bowl beside the door. “He’s something.”

  “Mmm,” Blake hummed thoughtfully. “That’s pleasantly vague.”
/>
  Blaine flicked the overhead light on, frowning at the space around him. The apartment was cheap, and it certainly looked like it to him. The door led into an open space, though not what Blaine would call a big one, that served as a living room. His furniture took up most of the room, allowing for his entertainment system. The kitchen sat behind it, stretching narrowly out of sight. The hallway led to the only bedroom, and further down the bathroom.

  It wasn’t much, but it was somewhere to lay his head at least.

  “Yeah, and your attempts at getting me to tell you more are incredibly subtle,” Blaine told him.

  “I am the definition of subtle.”

  “I think we’ve been reading different dictionaries.”

  “It’s been updated since the last time you cracked one open. You should check out the new edition, I’ll send you a copy.”

  Blaine rolled his eyes, even as some of his tension bled out of him. Both of them were known for being smartasses, but where Blaine was dry, Blake was as vibrant and playful as the man himself.

  Yet, as silly and goofy as the man was sounding, his brother was worried.

  Snagging a beer out of the fridge, he cracked it open. “It’s Eric.”

  “Eric?” Blake asked in confusion.

  Blaine waited, practically hearing the wheels spinning in his brother’s head.

  “Oh shit,” Blake spat out. “Eric, from when we were kids?”

  “We weren’t that young,” Blaine told him, making his way toward his couch.

  Blake whistled. “So you ran into Eric, alright, so that’s interesting.”

  “Uh,” Blaine began, wincing. “No, I didn’t just run into him.”

  “You didn’t...oh. Oh. Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s your partner?”

  “The one and only.”

  “Jesus. Small world.”

  “That’s one way to put it.”

  He could hear the frown in his brother’s voice. “Wait. You two were like, super tight when you were in school, and even tighter after you guys were out. Why the hell is he being a shit? I mean, besides it being his personality default.”

  Blaine frowned. “He was never a shit.”

  “Right, the bad attitude and overreactions were just part of a charming personality that I didn’t hear about.”

  “Blake. Don’t be a dick.”

  “Mmm, well, that’s even more interesting.”

  “I tell you not to be a dick at least twice a week.”

  “Yeah, but if Eric is the reason you’re having a hard time at work as your new partner, you should be pissed at him. But instead, you’re defending a man you haven’t spoken to in ages.”

  Blaine huffed. “Because you’re being a dick. I can call you out and still not be happy with him.”

  Well, it didn’t help that Blake was also a little right. Most people were turned off by Eric’s attitude. He could be moody, more than a little surly, and he had absolutely no shame in throwing his opinion around. People considered him abrasive and combative, and Eric generally didn’t care if people didn’t want to be around him.

  Blaine knew a different Eric, though, or at least had. The same bold and abrasive Eric had a genuine smile that was shy and even a little timid. The brutal, sometimes rough honesty hid a man who gave deep thought to many things and often hid a scared and vulnerable person.

  Blaine sighed. “And uh, there’s more to it than just that.”

  “Than your new partner being your grumpy former best friend?”

  “We were more than friends...near the end.”

  “Oh. Damn, when?”

  “About a month after his eighteenth birthday.”

  “Waited till he was legal, huh?

  Blaine sat up straighter. “That is not what happened. Jesus Christ, Blake.”

  “It was a joke,” Blake assured him around his laughter.

  “One in bad taste.”

  “I don’t think you get to talk about bad taste when you just admitted to dating the human cactus.”

  Blaine shook his head. “He was more than that. People just...didn’t see it.”

  “He didn’t want people to see it,” Blake corrected him.

  Blaine was a little amused that his brother seemed to know Eric better than he’d let on. Eric and Blake had never got on all that well, though neither had really tried either. It hadn’t been so much that they hadn’t liked each other, but they never really warmed up to the other either.

  “Didn’t know you paid attention, Blake,” Blaine told him.

  “Apparently not, since I didn’t even know my brother had himself a boyfriend,” Blake said dryly.

  Blaine shrugged at the underlying accusation. “It was before I told you, okay?”

  “And you didn’t tell me after...because?”

  “Because by the time I told you about me, Eric and I...weren’t a thing anymore. And it just wasn’t the time.”

  It had hurt, God how it had hurt. Everything that had been him and Eric had fallen apart in a matter of days. Telling his brother the truth about his sexuality and risking his rejection had seemed so small in the wake of losing Eric. Even the stress, pain, and struggle of boot camp had only been a distraction from the ache in his chest. At least the exhaustion had prevented too many sleepless nights.

  “And uh, eight years later is the time?” Blake asked.

  “Never planned to talk about it. By the time I was ready to talk about it, I was already gone, and I wasn’t going to call you up and ask if you remembered my best friend and tell you we were a thing until we weren’t.”

  There was another pause before Blake cleared his throat. “Just uh, how serious was it?”

  Blaine’s eyes drifted to the coffee table before him, and the hefty ring sitting atop its surface. He’d been wearing it the day he’d seen Eric for the first time in eight years. It was one of the few things that he kept with him wherever he went or made sure was safe when he could take nothing with him.

  In the previous two weeks, he hadn’t worn it again after seeing Eric. The man hadn’t seen it that first day, and for that, Blaine was thankful. He could only imagine what Eric’s reaction would have been if he’d seen it. Apparently, Blaine wasn’t the only one still holding a little too tight to the past.

  “Serious,” Blaine said hoarsely.

  “But it’s over,” Blake said.

  “Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat. “That was made uh, quite apparent.”

  The memory of that day was burned into Blaine’s memories, still holding enough power to make him feel ill. The look of betrayal and pain on Eric’s face was as clear eight years later as it had been then. His finger rose up, brushing lightly on the left side of his chest, where the ring had struck him.

  “Why?” Blake asked.

  “Because I left. Because I didn’t stay there, I didn’t stay there with him. I ran off to boot camp and spent the next eight years of my life in service to the government instead of being there for him,” Blaine told him.

  “Uh, okay, well, it sounds like you have your own issues to work out there. Because I definitely meant why is he still holding you to something that happened eight years ago, but uh, yeah.”

  There wasn’t really much Blaine could say to that. Why was Eric holding to something from almost a decade ago? The same question could be asked of Blaine, as he stared down at the silver ring sitting on his coffee table.

  He knew why Eric was furious with him. Because Eric was hurting. Songs and people who thought they were wise said that time healed all wounds, but Blaine knew better. Maybe it allowed scar tissue to form over the wound, but sometimes it just gave hurt time to fester.

  “Is this you venting or looking for advice?” Blake asked.

  “I don’t want advice,” Blaine huffed.

  “Well, sucks to be you, because you’re getting it anyway.”

  “Oh boy.”

  “Talk to him.”

  “Tried that.”

  “Fi
ne, fight with him.”

  “What?” Blaine asked, startled.

  “I don’t know, sometimes it works.”

  “Oh Christ, you’re not even trying to help, you’re just spitballing.”

  “Or you can just do your normal thing and carry on pretending the problem isn’t a big deal and let it continue on in a really shitty way.”

  “I…” Blaine began, then clamped his mouth shut.

  “You,” Blake said. “Are exactly like that. It’s honestly why I always liked your friendship with Eric. He pushed you to act, you made him slow down and think.”

  “All that man does is think,” Blaine grumbled. “Drives himself half-crazy most of the time from it.”

  And he didn’t give a shit what Eric thought. People didn’t change that much. Sure, they could learn new habits, both good and bad, and alter the way they reacted to situations. What was the point of going through the bull that life could throw at you if you weren’t willing to pick up a valuable lesson every once in a while?

  But that didn’t mean people just up and stopped being themselves. Eric would always be someone who thought too much and somehow managed to do too much as well. He would always be irritable, even if he had learned some control over his mouth. And he would always be the first and only person Blaine had ever been in love with.

  The thought made him grimace, and he found himself wishing his beer was a bottle of something stronger.

  “There’s a difference between thinking and obsessing. He’s always obsessed, but you were always the one to bring him down.”

  “Yeah, because that’s working out real well for me right now.”

  “Well, probably because he’s pissed at you...for something that happened a long time ago.”

  “Weird, huh? How people can just hold onto things that really bothered them.”

  Blake groaned. “Oh, fuck me, now you’re getting snippy. Which makes this my cue to get off the phone and let you wallow in your self-pity for a little while.”

  “I am not wallowing!”

  “Right. Of course. Sure, bud. Whatever you say.”

  “Oh, fuck off.”

  “Hmm, you have been hanging around Eric, after all.”